The artistic community in general has suffered some great losses with the start of 2016. For some reason, the passing of Alan Rickman really hit me hard. It might be because I had just watched all the Harry Potter films a week or so before, I don't know. But something about it made me infinitely sad.
And let's not even mention that all my favorite Bowie songs have been circling in my head for weeks now. So many good ones.
I wanted to honor each of these iconic artists in my blog. probably because I'm not really ready to let go of either of them. I lucked out that David Bowie was also an actor (if only Lemmy had tried his hand at acting!!), otherwise I would have probably tried to write some blithering, uninformed shit about music. I can assure you, that would not have gone well.
I was stumped on how I should approach this post. My favorite films from each of them? Films I hadn't seen yet? My usual go-to methods for procuring films let me down (neither Netflix nor Amazon had either Truly, Madly, Deeply or The Man Who Fell To Earth to stream/rent!), so I ended up just watching what I could. Still, its an absolute treat to spend a bit more time with these guys.
DAVID BOWIE (1947 - 2016)
Labyrinth - released in 1986
I wasn't actually sure if I'd ever seen the whole of Labyrinth before. I find that I consistently get it confused with Legend. Why I would think that David Bowie is in a film where Tangerine Dream composed the music?? Clearly I WASN'T thinking.
Anyway, I realized I had seen the film and it just didn't stay with me. I was too old when this movie came out for me to have that sort of nostalgic, "this movie is crap but I love it because it's my childhood!" feeling about it. I saw The Last Unicorn only a few years ago for the first time and was SLAMMED over the head with the fact that you needed to have seen this movie before you were 10 to feel any sort of lasting fondness for it. Apparently for me, the same goes for Labyrinth.
Jim Henson directed the film and George Lucas produced it. One thing I loved about it is that the opening credits listed all the puppeteer's names...because let's face it, they were the main actors. Jennifer Connolly plays the horrible, entitled heroine who has no respect for her family and clearly is in the "labyrinthian" turmoil of puberty (not super subtle there, dudes). I mean, I get it that she doesn't like her stepmother (who actually, barring her horrible 80s hair and peach colored clothes, seemed fairly nice) and is OVER babysitting her little brother, but her character arc seemed pretty shallow. For that, I blame the writers. Jim Henson, Dennis Lee (mostly a composer, the only screenplay he wrote is Labyrinth) and Terry Jones wrote it. Terry Jones!? Come ON! I know you're a better writer than this! You might not be my very favorite Python (although you always play a good woman) but you wrote Holy Grail and Life of Brian, for crying out loud!! I KNOW you can write better characters than this! Disappointed.
The puppets themselves are cute with the exception of Hoggle, who was a main character...his facial expressions were mostly lacking and the ones that were there were insufficient. There was also one puppet that had to have influenced the look of Maz Kanata from Star Wars: A Force Awakens. My favorite puppets, unsurprisingly, were the fox, Didymus, and his faithful steed, the dog Ambrocious. Adorable in the extreme.
And let's talk Bowie. He wrote the music, which is very 80's Bowie. This movie definitely doesn't highlight his acting skills, but he really was a great performer on so many levels (I mean, The Hunger...come on!). He also looks amazing..the man can really wear makeup well. And in the sea of mediocrity that is this film, he shines. He even seems to connect with the baby...who knew Bowie was a softie? There is a very sweet shot where he and the baby look at each other and smile. Melt. The only thing that was...alarming...was his pants. Wow. They are like grey leggings which really highlight how much the costume needed a codpiece. There were a lot of shots of Hoggle where Bowie and his JUNK were right there (Hoggle comes up to Bowie's waist). Maybe that's why I couldn't get behind Hoggle's facial expressions.
(My drink pairing for this film is Kamikaze shots. I drank them a lot in 1986. They won't help you navigate the labyrinth, but you won't care. (Side note (not at all PC, btw): when I asked my brother John in the 80's what was in a kamikaze he told me "a very little Japanese man who wants to die". Still cracks me up.))
ALAN RICKMAN (1947 - 2016)
CBGB - released in 2013
This movie didn't do well at the box office. It reportedly made something like $4000 on it's opening weekend. Wow. And it never really found its legs after that.
This movie is about Hilly Kristal (I kept thinking Did they just call him Billy Crystal?? every time I heard the name) who ran the NYC club CBGB. He is known as the Father of Punk Rock...his club hosted SO many amazing bands as they were starting out in the 70's: The Ramones, Talking Heads, Blondie, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, etc. I would have LOVED to have gone there back in the day.
One of the characters in the film is John Holstrom, the guy who started Punk Magazine. It was an illustrated mag; it's been likened to MAD Magazine in it's presentation. There was a different music magazine in the 1970's that had my allegiance (Long live BAM Magazine!), but I would have been interested to check this one out. John Holstrom is really almost a tertiary character in the film, but I imagine he's in there at all because the filmmakers decided to use Punk Magazine's influence to create the look of the film - each band introduced with a comic book panel. I expect this is so EVERYONE could figure out who's who. I also felt the comic book motif was to sort of Disney-fy the world of punk rock. Like "See, it's not so scary to watch these bands! They're in a comic book!! It's charming!" I kept thinking it's like the Starbucks of film styles. Coffee for non-coffee drinkers.
The film really fell apart for me, though, with the musical numbers. All the songs were lip-synced (with the exception of a song that Hilly sings...Alan Rickman did a darn good job of it, actually) which lends itself to disappointing performances. It also seemed like the songs they chose for each artist were their recognizable hits (for the most part) and I find it hard to believe it's what each band started their career with. I could be wrong, but it just felt too easy.
Malin Ackerman is maybe the most disappointing in her depiction of Debbie Harry. I'm never a big fan of her acting (yawns-ville in The Watchmen) but it seemed in this she couldn't even land on how to do Debbie's accent. It was all over the place.
Hilly Kristal managed a band called The Dead Boys, so we see a bit more of them. The lead singer, Stiv Bators, is played by the guy who goes missing in the Hangover, Justin Bartha (I love him in National Treasure, though, where he plays Riley. National Treasure is pretty much on every hour of every day on some channel or another, so if you are confused on who I mean, you won't have too wait long to find out.). The real Stiv is a fucking train wreck - he apparently choked himself to death once on stage (they revived him and he lived to punk another day). Hangover Dude puts in a good performance as Stiv. His bandmate, Cheetah Crome, is played by Rupert Grint. He's...okay. I'm gonna be honest. I'm a little worried that old Ron Weasley might not have the longest acting career. He's pretty consistently underwhelming. It was sort of sweet to see Rupert and Alan Rickman playing off each other again, though.
Maybe the filmmaker, Randall Miller (of BottleShock fame) really just had an extremely nostalgic feeling about this old punk club, which is why the whole film seemed so benign. I read where he wanted to find the "human story", but I think that does a disservice to punk clubs. And punk music. And the punk philosophy. When I think "punk" I don't think "human story. I think "loud". I think "drugs". I think "raw". You don't get those things at Disney. Or Starbucks.
I kept thinking about this old punk club my friend Lisa and I used to frequent in the 90's. It was on Valencia St in SF, called the Chameleon Club. Three bands for $5. My favorite memory of this club is when we saw a not terrible band from LA, The Leaving Trains (I think this was their name). The male lead singer was dressed in a slip with full makeup. The bass player was only wearing his not-so-tighty-anymore whiteys. In the middle of their set, someone set fire to one of the lead singer's hightop Chucks. He was COMPLETELY fucked up and didn't notice. We in the audience started to get a bit nervous, so someone put it out with their beer. The lead singer started yelling at the guy "Why is my shoe wet? Why the fuck did you pour your beer on me???" It was ALL SORTS of awesome.
The only reason I watched this film was for Alan Rickman. And honestly, he didn't disappoint. He never disappoints. The man can convey every emotion he needs to with a twitch of his eyebrow or a perfectly executed sneer. He was the king of subtle acting. It's always a treat to see him on film.
I actually ended up liking this movie. Hilly aligns with some Hells Angels, and the scenes with the Angels are pretty great. Also, there is a scene where Hilly's mother visits the club. Everyone is very nice to her and it's a sweet scene. It reminded me so much of my mother at the Bammies. Big 80's rock stars knew who she was and were lovely and respectful to her (I think it was Huey Lewis who called her Mom, which tickled her to no end).
I thought this was Alan Rickman's last film, but in fact it wasn't (he was in A Little Chaos in 2015 and has a voice role in a new Alice in Wonderland film and a role in another film releasing this year). He wasn't sick yet, he only discovered his cancer in 2015 after suffering a small stroke. Alan, we will miss you. Your vocal inflections and facial expressions were sublime and will not be forgotten.
(My drink pairing for this film is a shitty beer and a shot of cheap whiskey. Or two, so you won't realize your tennis shoe is on fire.)
My takeaways:
#1 - We are all a bit poorer for the loss of these two talented, charming, iconic men.
That is all.
xoxo...hashtagSueslife
